Women As a Legitimacy-Building Tool in US Foreign Policy: The Case of Women’s Protection Units (YPJ)

Studies regarding women in the US foreign policy mainly concentrate on the place of women with a particular attention to institutions that play a significant role in the foreign policy making process such as Congress, State Department and National Security Council. They analyze the roles, positions and responsibilities of women in the foreign policy-making through gender-based approaches. While roles or influence of women in policy-making process is quite an important topic, there is also a raising question whether women might find a place themselves as a legitimacy-building tool in the US foreign policy or in which circumstances women could have a place in the US foreign policy agenda. This article purposes to investigate why a militarist Kurdish women organization, the YPJ (Yekineyen Parastina Jin, Women’s Protection Units) can find a place for itself in the US foreign policy agenda. Data has been collected through the textual content analysis of mainstream newspapers, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and the pieces of US think-tanks with regard to its counterterrorism strategy against ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham) in addition to the related media outlets and academic literature over the topic. The article argues that US administrations have used the YPJ as a legitimacy tool for their counter-ISIS strategy in Syria by locating it in the broader policy objective, the democracy promotion in the Middle East. The article indicates that US administrations have worked with ground partners like the YPJ and YPG (Yekineyen Parastina Gel, People’s Protection Units) in the context of a military-based and security-prioritized alliance instead of having an external military intervention. Although there have been ideological differences between US administrations and the YPJ, the images of women as heroes/warriors that bravely fight ISIS have helped the US to overcome ideological differences and utilize the YPJ for legitimizing its counter-ISIS strategy and policy objectives in Syria.